The symbolism in our favorite foods.
When Maggie Glezer was just a teenager, she convinced her Russian great-grandmother to teach her to prepare her Old World specialties: gefilte fish, sour cherry-apple strudel, black walnut cake.
“Jews have a way of adopting foreign foods and smothering them with so much love that finally everyone thinks of them as being Jewish,” she writes in her award-winning cookbook, “A Blessing of Bread: Recipes and Rituals, Memories and Mitzvahs” (Artisan, $35). “Bread provides numerous illustrations of this inclination, if only because it is the most important food in the Jewish diet.”
While Jewish law prescribes individual blessings for any number of objects or occasions, the blessing over bread encompasses all food. “The ancient Israelites took the majority of their calories from bread,” said Glezer by phone from her Atlanta home. “In the Torah the Hebrew word ‘lechem’ is synonymous with food. A meal is not a meal unless you’re eating bread. Otherwise, it is just a snack.”
Bread lies at the heart of every Jewish celebration, from the twisted egg challah of the Sabbath to the round spiral centerpiece for Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, which begins at sundown on Monday, September 22.
“The round Rosh Hashanah challah represents the cycle of life and the cycle of the year,” Glezer explained. “In Yiddish it’s called ‘faigele’ or ‘little bird.’ My hypothesis is originally it probably came from the Ukrainian round bread baked with a bird’s head shaped in the center. Perhaps it became simplified and they lost the bird. The bird represents the quote from Isaiah: ‘As birds hovering, so will the Lord of Hosts protect Jerusalem.’ The symbolism always harks back to something holy, so that we keep G-d in our sight at all times.”
Often raisins are added to the Rosh Hashanah challah, or it is dipped in honey to symbolize the wish for a sweet new year. And traditionally, even at the most formal feast, bread is torn, rather than cut. “Knives are a weapon of war, and you don’t want a weapon of war on your table,” she noted.
Glezer’s recipe for Sephardic Pumpkin Bread, perfumed with cardamom and ginger, was adapted from “Sephardic Home Cooking,” by Gilda Angel, who explains that pumpkin is served for Rosh Hashanah “to express the hope that as this vegetable has been protected by a thick covering, G-d will protect us and gird us with strength.”
Glezer, whose first book “Artisan Baking Across America” gleaned a James Beard Foundation award, is an American Institute of Baking certified baker who, in “A Blessing of Bread,” explores bread baking over 5,000 years of Jewish history. She interviewed and baked with Jews from diverse traditions: Ashkenazic, Sephardic, North African and Near Eastern. Jewish rituals and customs, anecdotes, folktales and history round out the book. We learn, for example, that raqiq, a thin, unleavened Near Eastern bread dating from the Bronze Age, was sacrificed on the altar of the Temple in Jerusalem and is the ancestor of Catholic Communion wafers.
The braided challah of the Sabbath table was actually adopted by Jews from their German neighbors. “Jews admired their Sunday loaf. It looks beautiful, they thought. Obviously, we want our Sabbath loaf to look as beautiful. We mix our traditions with the local traditions and create new ones.”
Glezer offers tips and techniques that novices and accomplished bakers will appreciate. The number one mistake that beginners make is measuring incorrectly, she said. The solution? Get a good scale. “People should weigh their ingredients. Their breads would be almost perfect if they did.” To prove it, she has her students feel each other’s doughs. “The textures are all over the map. But if they weighed the flour, the results would be consistent. Experienced bakers know if the dough is too sticky to add more flour or if it’s too dry, to add more water.”
My favorite tip—a revelation, really—concerns rolling out the dough before shaping, which eliminates air pockets and produces even strands. “At the American Institute of Baking they have a machine that takes the blobs of dough and sheets them out to a couple millimeters’ thick for an incredibly fine texture. I thought, why couldn’t you do that at home.”
To form a Rosh Hashanah spiral, roll the dough as thinly as possible into an approximate circle. Then roll the thin sheet tightly into a strand with your palms. “To lengthen the strand, don’t pull,” she warns. “Push down, not out, letting the dough extend itself.” Use the same technique to form more intricate shapes, such as braids, which may also be joined to form a circle for the holiday. Braid loosely for the most defined shape. “But whatever you do will be beautiful,” Glezer assures us.
For another take on the iconic challah, I couldn’t resist the chocolate challah from “Kosher Revolution” (Kyle Books) by Geila Hocherman and Arthur Boehm, in which the authors show how to turn practically any recipe into a kosher one. Their Classic Challah recipe produces a golden, moist loaf with a beautifully layered crumb. The chocolate variation included here can be dairy or pareve, depending on the kind of chocolate you use.
Sephardic Pumpkin Bread
(Pan de Calabaza)
Yield: two 1-pound challahs
1 envelope (0.25 ounce) or 2 1/4 teaspoons instant yeast
1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon ground cardamom
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
About 3 3/4 cups bread flour, divided use
2/3 cup warm water
1/3 cup sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons table salt, plus 1 pinch for glaze
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1 large egg, plus 1 for glaze
1/2 cup canned pumpkin puree
Sesame seeds for sprinkling (optional)
1. In a large bowl, whisk together yeast, cardamom, ginger and 2/3 cup of the flour. Whisk in warm water until smooth. Let stand uncovered 10-20 minutes, until it begins to ferment and puff up slightly.
2. Whisk sugar, salt, oil, 1 egg and puree into puffed yeast slurry until well combined. With your hands or wooden spoon, stir in remaining flour all at once. When mixture is a shaggy ball, scrape it onto your work surface. Knead until well mixed, fairly smooth and firm. (Soak mixing bowl in hot water to clean and warm it for fermenting dough.) If dough is too firm, add a tablespoon or two of water. If dough is too wet, add flour by the tablespoon until dough is firm, easy to knead and not at all sticky.
3. When dough is fully kneaded, set it in the cleaned, warmed bowl. Cover with plastic wrap. (Dough can be refrigerated at this point for up to 24 hours.) Let dough ferment until tripled in bulk, 2 to 3 hours (an additional hour if refrigerated).
4. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper or oil them. Divide dough into two equal loaves. Place each on a baking sheet. To form a spiral, roll each dough half into a very thin sheet. Tightly roll sheet into a long, even strand. Wind dough loosely around, starting at the center, leaving plenty of space between loops. Bind last loop tightly to force dough to rise in center. Tuck end of strand loosely under the last loop. Tent dough well with plastic wrap. Let loaves proof until tripled in size, 60 to 90 minutes.
5. Meanwhile, 30 minutes before baking, arrange oven racks in upper and lower third positions and remove any racks above them. Preheat oven to 350°F. Beat remaining egg with pinch of salt for glaze.
6. When loaves have tripled in size and don’t push back when gently pressed with a finger but remain indented, brush with egg glaze. Sprinkle with sesame seeds, if using. Bake until very well browned, 35 to 40 minutes. (After first 20 minutes, switch pans from top to bottom and front to back to brown evenly.) Remove from oven and cool on a rack.
From “A Blessing of Bread: Recipes and Rituals, Memories and Mitzvahs” by Maggie Glezer
Chocolate Challah
Similar to babka but moister, this tempting loaf is delicious when used in a breakfast treat like French toast or on its own as a snack with coffee or milk.
Yield: two 1-pound loaves
4 ounces dark chocolate, finely chopped
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 cup sugar
1 large egg, for glaze
1. Prepare challah according to the Classic Challah recipe up to Step 4.
2. Grease two 8 x 4-inch loaf pans. Combine chocolate, cinnamon and sugar in mini food processor, and chop very finely.
3. Halve the dough, and roll one half into an 18 x 9-inch rectangle. Sprinkle half the chocolate mixture evenly over dough and, starting from nearest long end, roll dough like a Swiss roll. Bend roll to form a U shape with two ends nearest to you. Hold the middle and twist to form a braid with four bumpy sections. Place in one of the prepared tins and, using tip of sharp knife, slit each section on the diagonal so chocolate can be seen. Repeat with remaining dough half and filling. Cover loaves with plastic wrap and allow to rise until tripled in bulk, about 2 hours.
4. In small bowl, combine egg with 2 tablespoons water. Brush risen loaves with egg glaze, and proceed to bake following basic Classic Challah recipe.
Classic Challah
Instructions are for challah loaves. For a round challah, join braided strands to form a circle.
Yield: two 1-pound loaves
One 1/4-ounce packet active dried yeast (2 1/4 teaspoons)
3 1/2-4 cups bread flour, as needed
1 tablespoon plus 1/3 cup sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt
3 large eggs
1/2 cup canola oil
1. In 1-cup measuring cup, combine yeast with 1 tablespoon sugar and 3/4 cup warm (about 105°F) water. Stir and let sit until about 1inch of foam has formed, about 10 minutes.
2. Meanwhile, in bowl of stand mixer fitted with flat beater attachment, combine
3 1/2 cups flour, sugar and salt, and stir on low speed. Make a well in center of mixture.
3. In small bowl, combine 2 eggs and oil, mix, and pour into the well. Expand the well, then pour in yeast mixture. Mix briefly on low speed. Remove flat beater, insert dough hook, sprinkle mixture with 1/4 cup flour, and knead on low speed 1 minute. If dough is still sticky, add flour by 1/4 cups to achieve soft, unsticky dough. Knead a total of 5 minutes. Alternatively, to form dough by hand, put dry ingredients in
large bowl, make a well in it, fill with egg and yeast mixtures and, with clean hands, gradually incorporate dry ingredients into wet until thoroughly combined. Add 1/4 cup more flour and knead, adding more flour as necessary, until dough is formed. Transfer dough to work surface and knead 5 minutes.
Jlife Food Editor Judy Bart Kancigor is the author of “Cooking Jewish” (Workman) and “The Perfect Passover Cookbook” (an e-book short from Workman), a columnist and feature writer for the Orange County Register and other publications and can be found on the web at www.cookingjewish.com.